Patrick McDonald, Innovative Vending Solutions (IVS) founder and president, is a U.S. Army veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, who served from 1988 to 2006.
IVS began with an online T-shirt store that McDonald’s wife opened to provide a job opportunity for their disabled son Nick, who was bedridden due to Uchene’s Muscular Dystrophy, the company said in a statement.
After Nick’s death in 2007, the business was expanded.
As McDonald told the Dayton Daily News in a story earlier this year, McDonald found himself online, trying to find machines that could dispense T-shirts. The idea was simple: If a machine didn’t draw a decent business at one location, it could be moved to another.
The only options he found were in Japan.
“I thought, ‘Nobody else has them? Really? Am I on to something?’” McDonald recalled to DDN.
“Now, IVS is considered the leader in automated retail innovations with being an innovator in various applications including the first-ever Twitter activated machine,” the company.
IVS says it is the only vending company that is able to create a built-to-specification machine oriented to client goals. In the past, IVS has worked on technologies and applications with companies such as Wal-Mart, Sony North America, Twitter UK and Twitter US, IKEA and many others.
Most recently, the business developed the first-ever solar powered vending machine for a national bank.
“To be recognized by the Ohio Secretary of State is truly an honor,” McDonald said in his company’s statement. “For the state to not only recognize me as a veteran, but also IVS which was created during a hard time in our lives, well, there are no words. Simply, thank you.”
IVS today has about 25 employees, a spokeswoman said.